Marine`s Family Questions Shooting At Refugee Camp

May 07, 1991|By Debran Rowland.

The family of a Marine from Roselle was awaiting information Monday on some unanswered questions about his medical condition and the circumstances involved in his being wounded near a Kurdish refugee camp in Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Robert Minichino was in stable condition with bullet wounds in both legs suffered last week when an automatic weapon ``accidentally discharged`` during a training exercise near the Iraqi city of Zakho, a Marine Corps spokesmen said.

Major Rick DeChaineau said Lance Cpl. Gary Heisman, 21, of Ft. Myers, Fla., died Friday from chest wounds suffered in the incident.

Minichino and Heisman were assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which has been involved in building and providing security for Kurdish refugee camps.

DeChaineau said an investigation of the shooting was under way and that preliminary reports indicated it occurred as members of the unit ``were having some training on the automatic weapons.``

Minichino is a 1987 graduate of Lake Park High School. He attended the College of Du Page before enlisting in the Marines in February 1988.

``It was something that he wanted to do before he went to school,`` his mother, Sally, said of the older of her two sons.

She said the family still had ``a lot of unanswered questions`` about how Minichino was shot and his condition. ``We know that he has had one session of his surgery,`` she said. ``He is scheduled for another session.``

Marine officials informed the family Saturday that Minichino had been wounded but offered no explanation about what had happened, his mother said. She said officials told her that a bullet had traveled through her son`s right calf and lodged in his left calf.